Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men! I hope everyone had a blessed 2008. May 2009 be even better! Merry Christmas – and Happy Chanukah too.
God Bless,
Garritt
I am trying to get to 5,000 followers on twitter as quickly as possible. In the past 3 days, I have gone from 8, to around 250 and counting! I have found some great secrets to adding followers VERY QUICKLY, and will be writing about them in the next few days. Needless to say, I am very excited about the prospect of using twitter to keep in touch with people.
Follow me at http://twitter.com/Garritt
UPDATE – I HAVE HIT A WALL! (January 2, 2009)
It seems that twitter has a limit on the ratio of followers to followees that you can have, so I have stalled at around 510 followers. I found a note in the twitter help section, that says that once you are following 2000 people, you can’t follow any more until you have 2000 followers. As many of you may know, following many people is a great way to get many followers. I am seeing about a 4 to 1 ratio of followees to followers. At this point, I have to start unfollowing people, then follow new people to get my follower numbers up. I will keep you posted on the progress. I am still really happy with the results so far. 500 isn’t bad.
Please help me out, by following me, and telling your friends to do the same. Thanks!
UPDATE – 1000 Followers and Counting. (April 11, 2009)
First, let me say thanks to all who have already followed me. Next, if you haven’t follow me, why not? Get on it. go to http://twitter.com/Garritt and follow me.
I have found a few great ways to build followership, but the most important, by far, is to tweet a lot. I still haven’t buckled down, and written my twitter guide yet, but I will get there. I have been working and doing school, and buying a house, and moving… you know, life. But I do want to tell you about one service that seems to have worked, at least somewhat. You can try TweepMe, at www.Tweepme.com. It is an interesting idea, and seems to have added at least some new followers. It is getting harder to tell where they are coming from. Good Luck.
By the way, while I am on the subject of Twitter, check out TweetLater. It is the BOMB!!! Free version allows you to schedule tweets. I have found it to be incredibly useful. http://www.tweetlater.com/85773.html.
UPDATE – 2500 Followers and Counting. (April 21, 2009)
Just ten days ago I hit the 1000 follower mark. Today, I surpassed 2500, and as I write this, my follower count stands at 2634. I am adding about 250 followers a day now, using some very simple techniques. The truth is, I haven’t written about them, because I have been so busy working that I haven’t had time to spend at the computer. That includes spending time on Twitter. I have been growing on autopilot for the past few weeks, and I am convinced that once I can spend some more time on the computer, I can really pick up the pace. I feel like I should revise my original title, and race to 10,000 followers, as I am convinced that I can hit that number pretty quickly.
Ashton Kutcher broke the 1,000,000 follower mark, proving that if you promote yourself, and ask people to follow you, you can gain huge numbers of Twitter followers, very quickly. I don’t have 1/1000 the influence that he does, nor do I have access to the types of media, or the PR budget that he does, but the same types of methods he used can be just as effective for you and I. I will highlight some of those methods when I can finally sit down and finalize my Twitter tips post.
Apple has just added my “Radio Startup” application to it’s Automator Actions Download section. To view the download page at www.Apple.com, CLICK HERE!
Don’t forget to download your copy. I think you will really like it.
My little application, iTunes Startup, has been really popular over the past couple of years. I got an email from a user the other day, asking if it could be used for internet radio. While it is possible to modify iTunes Startup for internet radio, it is a real pain, but I liked the idea so much that I wanted to make a separate version specifically for internet radio. I spent most of the day updating iTunes Startup to work for internet radio, and named the new version Radio Startup.
While I was working on Radio Startup, I noticed a few bugs that I had missed in iTunes Startup, so I fixed them, and updated the installation and setup directions. I also moved the download files to my new server. Check out the newest version of iTunes Startup here, and if you like listening to internet radio, check out Radio Startup here.
Big News!
Radio Startup was added to the Apple.com Developer site, for download! Also, in the interest of getting iTunes Startup published on the site, I am changing the name to Good Morning Music!. Same great product, new great name.
In 2006 I put together a little Automator application called Good Morning Music!, that has been very popular. I recently had an email from a user, asking if Good Morning Music! could be used for internet radio. I liked the idea so much, that I modified Good Morning Music!, specifically to handle radio, and renamed the program, here it is.
Radio Startup
Version: 1.03, 1.1.0 (FREEWARE)
System Requirements – Macintosh Computer
(c)2008 Garritt Hampton
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD for Power PC Macs
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD for Intel PC Macs
INTRODUCTION
Radio Startup is a simple Automator program intended to start your day off right. I like to start my workday with music, but I want it to start at a nice low-medium volume level. Radio Startup will set your computer volume and iTunes volume at a reasonable level, then begin playing a specified iTunes Radio Station for you, or if you would like, it will randomly pick a station from a list of stations you have chosen (For more information on this option, see the section entitled “MULTIPLE STATIONS” below).
Radio Startup will also work for podcast episodes, and stations not in the iTunes “Radio” menu. For podcasts, add selected episodes to the “Radio” playlist. For radio streams, just add the streaming MP3 to iTunes, then to the “Radio” playlist.
I have included the Radio Startup workflow to enable you to change volume or playback settings or to adapt this workflow to do other things.
Special Thanks goes to Mr. Umeno, for his suggestion to adapt the original “Good Morning Music!” application to work for radio as well.
SETUP (Single Station)
1) Place the Radio-Startup application, from the “Single Station” folder into your iTunes folder (Users/’you’/Music/iTunes).
2) Create Radio Playlist in iTunes.
- To begin using Radio Startup just create playlist in itunes (Select “File”, “New Playlist”)
- A new playlist called “untitled playlist” will be created and placed at the bottom of your iTunes playlists
- Name the playlist “Radio”
- Drag any iTunes radio station in to the “Radio” playlist
3) Add Radio-Startup application to Login Items
- Open System Preferences.
- Select “Accounts”.
- Select the “Login Items” tab.
- Click the “+” button below the list.
- Select the Radio-Startup application in your iTunes folder.
- Click Add.
- Check the box next to Radio-Startup to hide the application when it starts.
4) Enjoy.
MULTIPLE STATIONS
SETUP (Multiple Stations)
1) Place the Radio-Startup application, from the “Multiple Stations” folder, into your iTunes folder (Users/’you’/Music/iTunes).
2) Create Radio Playlist in iTunes.
- To begin using Radio Startup just create playlist in itunes (Select “File”, “New Playlist”)
- A new playlist called “untitled playlist” will be created and placed at the bottom of your iTunes playlists
- Name the playlist “Radio”
- Chose a few iTunes radio stations and drage them into the “Radio” playlist (note: if you don’t have more than one station in the playlist, it will not work. If you only plan on playing one station, use the instructions above).
3) Add Radio-Startup application to Login Items
- Open System Preferences.
- Select “Accounts”.
- Select the “Login Items” tab.
- Click the “+” button below the list.
- Select the Radio-Startup application in your iTunes folder.
- Click Add.
- Check the box next to Radio-Startup to hide the application when it starts.
4) Enjoy.
If you like Radio Startup please tell a friend, then check out Good Morning Music!. Good Morning Music! is similar to Radio Startup, but is geared toward music.
Version Changes
1.1.0 – (10/15/2009) Intel Mac Version
1.0.3 – (11/5/2008) First version of Radio Startup (Forked from “Good Morning Music! 1.0.2″)
Fixed “Shuffle” bug
1.0.2 – Corrected name of playlist, from “Strartup” to “Startup”
1.0.1 – Bug Fixes to “Good Morning Music!”
1.0.0 – (2006) Original Release of Good Morning Music!”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
Important Note!
This version of “Radio Startup” has been successfully tested on a PowerPC Mac running OS 10.4.11. I have included the Automator Workflow in case there are compatibility issues with Intel Macs. If you have problems with this program not running on later versions of OS 10, or on Intel Macs, please open the Automator Workflow, then re-save as an application. This should solve any compatibility issues. Also, the “Single Station” version of this program will only work with one station in the playlist, and the “Multiple Stations” version will only work with 2 or more stations in the playlist.
Update
Intel Mac version released!!!
Old News
I have had a couple of comments and emails saying that this program doesn’t work on Intel Macs. At this time, I don’t have an Intel Mac, so I am unable to update Radio Startup to be compatible with Intel Macs. This is where you come in! If you have an Intel Mac, and can get the program to work, and save the application as Universal Binary, I would LOVE to post it here. In return, You would get credit on this page, and on the Apple.com downloads page, and I would post a link to your site, on this page. Thanks in advance!
